Menominee Nation is the sixth tribe in Wisconsin to sign an agreement with the state DPI that calls for educating, not assimilating, Native youth. Here's what the agreement means.
Correction: This story has been updated from an earlier version to correctly reflect Dr. Jill Underly's title.
KESHENA - When Ron Corn Sr. graduated high school in 1977, he said he was among the last generation of Indigenous children Wisconsin schools actively tried to assimilate into non-Native culture.
“I was probably at the end of assimilation, where they tried to take that part of us that are Menominee,” he said. “It’s so gratifying and enlightening that our elders maintained our ways, for a lot of them under great distress.”
Now, as chairman of the Menominee Nation in Wisconsin, Corn this month signed an agreement with the state to ensure not only that there will not be assimilation attempts again, but that there will be support to teach Native culture in schools.
He and Dr. Jill Underly, state superintendent of Public Instruction, signed a memorandum of understanding Jan. 23 in Keshena.
“It is not just a memorandum of understanding, it’s also support,” Underly said. “Support only comes after understanding.”
The agreement ensures that consultations and regular meetings will take place between state education officials and the Menominee Nation, which operates its own school district on the reservation.
The agreement also stipulates that DPI will support the tribe in cultural awareness education and trauma-informed care through mental health services and in financial help.
The cultural awareness education also includes the state supporting the tribe in its Menominee language revitalization efforts.
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The tribe started a language immersion classroom at its daycare center in 2017, and for this school year, which started last fall, the Menominee Indian School District created a pre-K and kindergarten charter school.
Marc Grignon, the Menominee Nation’s language and culture coordinator, said 28 children there speak only the Menominee language all day long.
“The language education for the last five or six years has been amazing,” he said. “Our people have jumped leaps and bounds.”
Corn said it was important to get this agreement in writing with the state.
“It memorializes what we agreed to in the event there’s a change in leadership,” he said.
The memorandum of understanding agreement is the sixth signed between the DPI and a tribe of Wisconsin.
The DPI started formalizing these agreements in 2018 and the previous tribes that have signed are Oneida, Bad River Ojibwe, Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe, Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe and Red Cliff Ojibwe.
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Corn said the Menominee Nation would have signed it earlier, but the pandemic had delayed the in-person signing ceremony.
The purpose of the agreements is for state educators to “seek to establish critical relationships with American Indian Nations.”
Officials from the neighboring school districts in Gresham and Shawano also attended the ceremony, which included students providing “snow snake” demonstrations, which are javelins used in competitions and for sending messages across the ice.
Frank Vaisvilas is a Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.You can directly support his work with a tax-deductible donation online at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA or by check made out to The GroundTruth Project with subject line Report for America Green Bay Press Gazette Campaign. Address: The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services, 9450 SW Gemini Drive, PMB 46837, Beaverton, Oregon 97008-7105.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Wisconsin DPI, Menominee Nation agreement: Education, not assimilation
